


Only Human Can Understand

by jesterlady



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Angst, Catharsis, Episode: s02e22 Born to Run, F/M, Missing Scene, One Shot, Romance, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 17:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cameron decides to talk to John and then John decides he doesn't care anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Human Can Understand

**Author's Note:**

> My version of THAT scene from 2X22.   
> Spoilers for all.  
> Disclaimer: I don't own TSCC.

Her chip passes for her mind. It is the human equivalent. She has learned through her time spent with the Connors that it is better if she reacts to her body as though it were human. Though not to them. They do not want to think she is human. It would be dangerous if they did and she does not correct them. 

John is different. John wants her to be human. She is 95.7% sure of this, but since it does not pertain directly to her mission she does not pursue any further testing. Occasionally, it is John who will do that. He will say something or do something that she does not understand. 

Her model is designed to be as human as mechanically possible and she is adaptable to her environment. The more time she spends with John, the more she understands how he wishes she could be. The fact that she never will be seems to be irrelevant to him. It confuses her and, yet, it does not make her wish it was any other way.

She understands the human methods of seduction, desire, and intimacy. She has recognized the fact that her proximity to John by default makes her what humans would call intimate. Since it is important for her to act according to human expectations, she strives to behave in a manner that is appropriate to that situation. But it is different with different people. This confuses her further.

Sarah and Derek do not want her to act close with John. They fear her influence on him and it is not unreasonable for them to think that. They do not have her knowledge of the future and what John himself has said to her, but, in their time, they are supported by reason. This John that she protects daily does not understand what John from the future knows. That he needs her.

This John pretends he doesn’t. A crisis sometimes brings out feelings of strong emotion within him, such as when he fixed her. Each time she observes his reactions and stores them within her databanks. They will prove useful in the future and they help her understand her mission better. Daily interactions provide different types of responses. She has noted his elevated heartbeat whenever she wears something that shows more skin. The fact that he does not reach for his gun whenever she enters the room, as Sarah and Derek do. That he talks to her about things that do not pertain to the mission. That his defense of her is never wavering.

This is not logical behavior for someone in his situation. But she does not advise him against it except in specific instances. Her understanding of him is important and she does not understand why herself. She knows it is not possible for her to be anything other than a machine. John from the future does not say things like that. This John says things like that, but he is lying. He does not believe it. If he did, his actions toward her would be different. She knows this. It has a predictability factor of 99%.

The mission has become harder. John himself has grown harder to read. She is still superior enough to judge the situation squarely. Her chip, her mind, processes information at a much faster rate than her human companions. 

At this moment she is listening for sounds of an approach, estimating how much time it will take to get to any weapon in the room, judging the length of time it will take to release Sarah from her prison, planning how best to kill Ellison after that is completed, determining the safest place to take John when they were done, calculating how much time with this John she has left, wondering what it was like to dream as he was now, and thinking that it was interesting how humans could sleep and look the way they did. If she approximated his behavior, she would appear dead. She is not alive. Neither is she dead. She is an impossible thing. That was what John had said once and then again, seventy two days, fifteen hours, four minutes, and three seconds later.

Cameron senses John will wake in forty two seconds. It is time to say something to him. 

***

He woke with a start, he could feel someone was watching him and he hated that. For one brief moment he thought it was his mother and he felt an intense stab of joy. It was Cameron instead and, yet, the joy lessened only slightly. It was an all too common thought in his head these days and he stuffed it away like he needed to.

She was staring at him as she always did and he found himself looking for that spark of humanity that he could never find. It hurt him that he couldn’t find it, but that wasn’t something he wanted to think about. Instead, she started to speak. She spoke in her usual way, complete, straight forward sentences, nothing run-on. She reminded him of what she was. Not who she was.

He already knew that. That’s what his mom and Derek, (Derek) were always trying to tell him. He’d been taught that since the moment he was born and he was pretty sure his mom had been telling him before that too. His thought processes were always a contradiction. They told him that Cameron was a machine, that she could and would kill him in the blink of an eye if her chip went wrong. (But only if her chip went wrong.) They told him that all he did was to try and stop her from ever existing. Then they said that he needed her, that she saved his life on a daily basis, that she was beautiful in a child like way, with a curiosity and, somehow, a sense of humor, that amazed him. That she knew him better than anyone ever would and that it was more than her mission to do so.

But she told him she wanted to kill him and it hurt him to hear it. He wanted her to say something else, like that she didn’t want to kill him, that she was fighting her programming for him. But he knew she wouldn’t say that. How could she? Instead, she told him she might kill him someday. Then she, she of the contradictions and the frustrations and the joy, she took off her shirt and showed him herself. It was every teenage boy’s dream. It was his own dream. It was ironic as hell, and it was, somehow, so very wrong. He kept his tongue quiet, maybe he was in shock. He couldn’t stop his breathing from quickening or his heartbeat from pounding and, somehow, in the back of his head, his mind said that she was probably recording every single one of his heartbeats and using that information against him.

He didn’t know why he obeyed her. Yes, she always had a reason for what she did, but why, why would she want this? He tried to keep his eyes off her skin, off the images he’d dreamed about and then fought to forget. How impossible when he could feel her under him. Maybe he was tired of running. Maybe he was exhausted from fighting. Being on top of her was better than he’d ever imagined. Maybe he would throw up.

Cutting her open was easier. How many times had he done that? Both now and in the future. Too many to count for him. He was sure she’d know exactly how many times. The familiarity of the routine left plenty of room for random, racing thoughts. He knew she could feel that he was cutting her and it was funny to think how good this felt and yet he was hurting her. She wanted to know if she was damaged. How sensible and machine like. Was she doing this to reassure him? Still, she was below him, lovely, even with her metal shining up at him. And they were enacting a hideous parody of one of humanity’s most intimate acts, but it was the most stimulating thing he’d ever done. How horrible was he, this would-be savior of mankind? 

She stared up at him and her voice was calm, and, as he felt her coldness, he shuddered inside. It didn’t feel wrong, it felt right. His face was inches above hers and it would be so easy, so simple, to just bend down. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t wanted to do before, anything it hadn’t taken all his will power to stop from doing before. She had always been there and only his knowledge of what she was stopped him.

He’d run from her for so long even as he fought to keep her by his side. He still bled from Riley’s death, someone he’d thought he could help, someone he’d wanted to protect from Cameron and protect Cameron from. Someone who could have been strong and beautiful and good, all the things Cameron already was. Was she good? She said she wanted to be good, what her definition was he didn’t know. It drove him crazy that he couldn’t even talk to her about it. She wouldn’t understand. This would be so much easier if she could just feel something. That was kept him away, but he was so tired of that.

It felt like the world was ending. Would Judgment Day explode all around them? Nuclear blasts and bleached skulls and the supposed leader of the Resistance straddling one of the machines who made it happen. Everything had been taken from him. His father, his mother, his uncle, his childhood, his future. Everything but her. Inwardly, he pleaded with her not to go too.

“John,” she said and the silence lasted for an eternity, “I understand more than you think I do.”

“What?” he breathed and his head dipped lower unconsciously. 

“I wouldn’t be worth much if I couldn’t feel, I said that. It is true. Your heart rate is approaching unsafe limits.”

“That happens when you’re on top of a girl,” he muttered.

“I am not a girl.”

“Can’t you just be?” he asked, finally giving in. “I need you to be. Extend your mission perimeters, I don’t care, just be Cameron.”

“I am Cameron,” she said, never blinking. “I understand what you want, John.”

“This?” he asked and bent his head, grazing her lips. 

Her lips were soft, but they did not move. It was more disappointing and better than he thought it would be. She was always like that.

“Will it please you to kiss me again?” she asked, that bird-like innocence mocking him with its ignorance.

“It would please me if I wasn’t a freak in love with a freak,” he said viciously. “I want you to kiss me back.”

“I only take orders from Future You,” she said, “but I do not see how this will violate my mission. Kiss me again.”

He closed his eyes and willed her to respond. She did. Where she’d learned to do that he didn’t know, but it more than fulfilled anyone’s expectations. He felt alive again. And it felt like she was feeling too. He almost didn’t care if it was a lie.

“John,” she said, when he broke away, his hands moving to barely touch her bare stomach, “did that make you happy?”

“Yes,” he choked out, not caring about anything anymore. “How about you? Am I any good?” 

His attempts at joking at the moment were lame and he knew it.

“I am as human as it is possible for me to be,” she said. She brought one hand up inquisitively with her usual lack of knowledge of personal space. Considering his own position on top of her, he guessed he couldn’t complain.   
She traced his lips slowly and then put her hand on his chest, drawing down to the bottom of his shirt and then brought it up and over his head with a grace that he normally saw her use to kill things. He suddenly felt vulnerable, though he supposed they were even now. “I will always learn more,” she said, still running her hands over his skin. 

He could barely keep his mind straight, even as he unconsciously moved to cover her more fully.

“More?” he questioned.

“More humanity,” she answered. “I am…pleased to please you. You know I am incapable of overt displays of emotion. To do so would be a lie. I know you dislike that even when it is necessary. When my chip failed, I said a lot of things to you.” He could still hear her voice, pleading with him, desperate. “They were a lie because I meant to use them to kill you.” He turned his head away, but she brought it back to look into her eyes. “They are not a lie now.”

She kissed him. He couldn’t process, so he kissed her back, again and again. Somehow, she closed up her chest cavity while touching his face and bringing his hands to touch all of her skin. He knew that his mother would disapprove. He knew it might be a trick. He knew what he felt. He knew what his responsibilities were and what their task would be in a few short hours. He knew, at this moment, he didn’t care if she was a machine. And he knew her. He knew she had given him the only thing it was possible for her to give him. She was designed to kill him, he was to be careful, but she didn’t want to leave him either. If she couldn’t feel humanity’s love, she could design her own and give it to him and he could love enough for both of them.

She felt so right, so perfect beneath and above him, ever changing, ever graceful, light hands skimming and caressing like they knew what they were doing, lips bringing sensations he’d never felt. He felt her fake heart beating against his and even though she would never tell him she loved him, never whisper words of endearment, would never cease to be a danger, she was giving up as much as he in this moment. He’d fought with, for, and against her for so long and while he knew it wasn’t an option for the rest of his future, this part of his life, this surrender, would always be sweet.


End file.
